


pansies in soft april rains

by shuijing



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Fae & Fairies, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Urban Fantasy, Werewolves, brief seungcheol/seungkwan if you squint. like squint really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 04:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17094080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuijing/pseuds/shuijing
Summary: Hansol and Minghao grow up together. Some things change, but these don't:1. Minghao smells like pansies.2. Hansol is protective.3. No matter what pulls them apart, they'll always, inevitably, come back to each other.





	pansies in soft april rains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vsyubs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vsyubs/gifts).



> merry christmas! hope you, my dear recipient, like this 18k of self-indulgent verhao childhood friends au. i tried my best to incorporate your prompts, and i hope you're not disappointed!! 
> 
> some terms that weren't explained in the fic:  
> faerie court: a city where faeries of a particular area stay. isolated and hidden from the rest of the world through faerie magic called glamour.  
> alpha/beta: the werewolf pack leader and their mate. nothing to do with a/b/o dynamics, but rather the traditional terms used when studying wolf behaviour.

**여섯 | 七**

Hansol is six years old when a moving truck pulls into the house three doors down from his and the Xus move into his neighbourhood.

"Come on, sweetheart," his mother sighs, tugging her son's hand as if that could displace his extremely stubborn feet from where they're clinging onto the floor of their sitting room. "It'll only be for ten minutes, maximum, and we're just being polite. Don't you like being a nice boy?"

"Not when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is starting in five minutes!" Hansol complains. His mother sighs and runs a hand over her pregnant belly, as if the baby could provide a stress reliever. (She can't. Hansol has seen his mom throw up because of her, clearly she's not going to be of any help.) 

"I knew I shouldn't have let your pack brothers introduce you to that show," she mutters, and Hansol is about to start whining _again_ because a world without his favourite crime-fighting turtle mutants is too much to bear, but she cuts him off with her pleading tone. "I heard the family has a son around your age, why don't you go introduce yourself to him? He could be your new best friend."

Hansol merely scoffs, because he already knows who's going to be his best friend. Her name will be Sofia, and he'll make her peanut butter sandwiches and teach her how to skateboard and show her the sunniest spots to take a nap in their wolf forms, when she's old enough. He'll also push her into the swimming pool when she's least expecting it, since that's what Seungcheol's older brothers do to him, but he'll say sorry afterwards and sneak a lollipop into her lunchbox to make up for it. And she'll like him best, because he chose her name.

"Eomma, please just let me stay home? Please? Why do you need me there anyway?" He pouts. His mother sighs again, more resigned than impatient, then brings Hansol over to the couch so she can sit down and look him in the eye as she talks.

"Listen to me carefully, sweetie, and don't tell anyone about this. I'm trusting you with this, okay?" She says, hushed, and he nods, eyes wide and suddenly intrigued by the secret his mother is spilling. "This new family that moved in... it's just a mother and her little boy. The entire neighbourhood's been up in flames gossiping about it. I'm bringing you because I don't want it to seem like I'm just poking my nose into business that isn't mine. And I think if she knows her son has a playmate, she can relax a little."

Hansol frowns. He's never known what it's like to have a small family; sure, he only has his mom and dad right now, with Sofia on the way, but he grew up surrounded by his pack. Sunday night dinners at their alpha's house, where Hansol roughhoused with his pack siblings and got coddled by every wolf over the age of eighteen for being the youngest pup. This family is related to him in every way but blood, and it's huge. He can't imagine what it's like, to walk around a neighbourhood where he doesn't know anyone, where he can't stop by the Jeons' house for ice cream on sweltering summer days and run around building snow forts with his pack siblings in winter. He can't imagine what it's like to restart your life somewhere new, wading through the ocean of unfamiliar territory with only his mother's hand as a lifeline.

 _Scary,_ he rationalises. _It would be so scary._ And suddenly he feels like he owes it to the new kid, whose face he's never even laid eyes on, to make it a little more welcoming.

"Okay," he sighs, and his mother smiles like she knew her kind little boy would come around eventually. "But we have to record Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so I can watch it later."

;

Hansol doesn't know what he expected of the new family before he made the trek down the road, gripping his mother's jacket with one hand and balancing a plate of pecan pie (Mrs Chwe's specialty) in the other. He doesn't know what he expected, but it wasn't this.

The woman that opens the door is tall and thin, her cheekbones high on her face and her eyes sharp. Her hair is tied back severely in a neat bun, and she wears a blouse and slacks like she's at a business meeting and not in the comfort of her own home. She's pretty, in the way glaciers are: regal, elegant, untouchable. But Hansol isn't looking at her, he's looking at the boy who peeks around her legs, wide-eyed and tense.

He's got dainty features, like a bud recently bloomed into a flower, with his button nose and pink lips. He's skinny like his mother is, and from what Hansol can gauge, probably taller than him. His hair is silver, long enough to cover his ears, and Hansol wonders how he got his mother to agree to dyeing it. That's not the most interesting part of him, though.

Hansol has one of the best noses of the pack, despite his rank as the youngest. Even the alpha has complimented him on how quickly he can pick up a scent and how easily he can discern different smells. It had hit him the moment the door opened. The boy's mother smells like humans normally smell: milky and slightly metallic, masked under all the perfumes and colognes they use. But the boy doesn't smell human. The scent of pansies floats around him, delicate and light but thick enough that Hansol can almost taste it on his tongue. It's utterly perplexing. The kid looks so human, and he clearly has his mother's eyes, but there's no mistake when it comes to his scent. He isn't human.

Hansol's mom introduces herself as a friendly neighbour just coming to say hello and welcome them to the neighbourhood. The adults exchange pleasantries as Hansol desperately tries to rack his brain for any species that smells like pansies. He certainly hasn't smelled it before, so he tries to recall anything he's read before and half-listen to the conversation for any clues. The woman's words are heavily accented, though her Korean is smooth and free of grammatical errors. He isn't particularly well-versed in accents, though, and now he's fresh out of ideas to the boy's identity. It doesn't help that he hasn't said a word the entire time, just staring at Hansol, owl-eyed.

"Would you like to come in?" Says the woman, gesturing inside her home. Hansol doesn't miss the way her eyes drop to his mother's swollen belly. "You must be tired, er, standing out there."

"That sounds wonderful," his mom agrees delightedly, and she tugs Hansol inside with her. 

The lady gracefully accepts the pecan pie from Hansol's chubby hands and makes the adults two cups of tea. She offers Hansol a cookie, and he munches on it as they make their way from the kitchen to the sitting room. 

"Go on, make friends," Hansol's mom whispers, nudging him towards the other boy. The two women take a seat on the couch, leaving the children to play among themselves. 

The boy looks at his feet instead of Hansol, scuffing his toes against the carpet. His hair shifts from the movement, revealing one slighted pointed ear. He doesn't seem likely to speak first, so Hansol says the first thing that comes to his mind. "Why is your hair silver?"

The other boy blinks at him, reaching up a hand to pat his fringe and smooth back his hair so it covers his ears again, self-conscious. "Sil... ver?"

His voice is pretty, Hansol notes, soft like the rest of him, and accented like his mother's. It appears that he isn't as fluent, though, so Hansol nods. "Yeah, silver. You know, that colour on your head. And like, of metal and stuff."

"Oh," he says, and then mutters something to himself in another language. It sounds like Mandarin, but Hansol can't be sure. "I was, uhm, born? Yeah, born with it."

Hansol's eyes widen. He's itching to touch the boy's hair, and maybe sniff it to see if he can smell any dye (although his mom has told him it's rude to smell people he just met), but he controls himself. "I don't believe you."

The boy, surprisingly, doesn't try to defend himself. He shrugs coolly, unaffected even when he stumbles over the Korean words. "You can't- You don't have to. It's still gonna be silver."

Hansol squints at him, mentally evaluating this new, interesting kid. It's quiet for a few seconds, before Hansol declares, "I'm Hansol, and I'm six and three quarters. Do you like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"

"I'm Minghao. I'm seven, and I moved here from China," says the boy, like he's rehearsed it dozens of times beforehand, and then he frowns. "I've never watched that show."

Hansol gapes at him - _Never watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? How had he been living all along?!_ \- before he grabs his hand and says, "If we're going to be friends, you _have_ to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's the rule."

A small smile spreads across Minghao's face, sweet and delicate like a pansy flower. "Okay. If that's the rule."

 

**여덟 | 十**

Hansol's mom turns out to be right, as mothers tend to be, though only partially. Sure, after Sofia was born, Hansol had gone to the hospital to visit his mother and his new baby sister, accompanied by Seungcheol and his dad. He had blinked down at her big eyes and pink-stained cheeks, her tiny fist raised as she pouted, and felt, somewhere deep in his bones, the wolfish instinct to protect his own woven together with the human big-brother protectiveness. He had watched with just as much pride as his seven-year-old body could hold as the pack alpha, Mr Choi, picked her up with a gentle, fatherly smile on his face, kissing her forehead and Marking her with the pack's scent as per tradition for every pup. He had warmed up her milk bottles and saw her take her first wobbly steps and read her bedtime stories in the dim glow of her elephant-shaped nightlight. He's also very proud of the fact that he's the only one who can call her Fifi without getting kicked by an angry toddler.

But Hansol's mom is still right in a way, because even though he loves Sofia unlike anything else, Minghao had, somewhere in their three years of knowing each other, tumbled his way into the position of his best friend.

"Hansol!" Mrs Chwe's voice echos down the hallway, sounding frazzled. "Can you get Hangyeol? She Shifted again!"

Hansol heaves a long-suffering sigh, putting his game console face-down on his bedspread and clambers off the bed, bare feet hitting the floorboards. Minghao shoots him an amused look from where he's lying on his stomach, kicking his feet against the headboard and smashing buttons on his own console. Even with his limited grasp of English, he understands what Mrs Chwe is yelling. "This is, like, the fourth time this week."

"I know, I've been asked to catch her every single time," Hansol grumbles, quickly exiting his room in search of his pesky sister. Pups aren't in control of their Shifts, he knows, but he can't help but be a little annoyed that he and Minghao's hang-out time has been compromised. He calls over his shoulder, "Do you want anything from the kitchen?"

"Just get me something cold, I'm practically baking," Minghao answers, and Hansol internally agrees. It isn't quite summer yet, but with the way the temperature steadily creeps higher with each passing day, it looks like he's going to spend most of his time in the pool or holed up in his air-conditioned room, lest he melt into the sidewalk. He takes the stairs two at the time, spotting his baby sister at the same time his feet step onto the landing of the first floor. A wolf pup runs around the sitting room, tongue lolling out of her mouth and a diaper looped around her belly. Hansol deflates a little in relief; the last time Sofia had Shifted and lost her diaper in the process was a messy experience he does not ever want to repeat.

"Sofia, come here," he calls as he approaches, and the pup skids to a stop, nails clicking. She looks back at him, excitement dancing in her eyes, and sinks into a play bow with her front legs splayed out in front of her. She lets him get close enough to reach out his hands, then springs away and bounds across the room, her tail going into overdrive with excitement. He grins as he chases her around, letting her get away from him and snap at his ankles once or twice. She's the youngest pup in the pack by far, and isn't strong enough to wrestle with the rest of them yet, so Hansol is the one who fuels her playful energy into something other than playing tug with electrical wires or biting the furniture. 

Eventually, she starts to tire out and trots instead of clumsily running in the way that pups do, and Hansol easily scoops her up and cradles her against his chest. She lets out a low whine, wanting more playtime, but then she licks his chin and he knows he's forgiven. He senses the Shift before he can see it, hears the way the fuzz over her body starts to retreat into her skin and smells the dirty copper scent of bones and blood vessels re-aligning themselves. In less than a minute, he has a two-year-old girl in his arms instead of a baby wolf, wearing nothing but her diaper.

"You're getting better at controlling it," Hansol tells her, sounding stern even as the edges of his lips quirk into a fond smile. "Did you Shift just so you could run around and play, you little brat?"

"No, no!" Sofia shrieks as she hits her brother in the chest repeatedly. He laughs and carries her to the kitchen, where his mother is making kimchi pancakes. The smell is heavenly, and he puts Sofia in her baby chair so he can sneak over and try stealing one of the pieces cooling on a plate. His mother smacks his hand before he can even touch them. "Stop right there, Hansol, lunch will be done soon. You can wait until then. And dress Hangyeol while you're at it."

Hansol huffs but retracts his hand anyway, picking up his sister's dress from where it lies discarded on the floor. He re-dresses her and combs through her tangled curls with his fingers, then passes her one of her plushies and kisses the top of her head. She squeals and amuses herself by chewing on Mickey Mouse's ear, and he walks away to the refrigerator, bringing out a jug of lemonade and pouring two glasses. His mom reminds him not to get any on the bedspread as he leaves, and he hums back in reply.

When he gets back to his room, Minghao is no longer on the bed, but squinting at himself in the full-length mirror, brushing his hair away from his face. _It's getting too long,_ Hansol notes as he places the glasses on his desk and leans his weight against it. "I think you need a haircut."

"Mm, I guess," Minghao mumbles, pushing his fringe back from where it's falling into his eyes. "But..." His fingers, instinctively, find their way up to the pointed tip of his left ear.

Hansol is seized by an ugly, burning feeling in his stomach. "Did someone say something about your ears again?"

"No," says Minghao, in a tone of voice that very much says _yes._ Hansol just looks at him intensely, in the way he knows makes Minghao squirm even if they're not looking at each other, and after a few seconds of silence the older boy relents. "Okay, maybe somebody did say something. Stop _staring_ at me like that, it's weird."

"What did they say? Who was it?" Hansol asks, his mouth curving into a scowl. In his mind, he can see the same scene that loops in his head at night when he can't sleep: Minghao, by the swings on his first day of school two years ago, shocked into silence at whatever one of his new classmates snarled at him, eyes brimming with tears. Hansol had been at the other end of the playground at the time (though he wasn't just a minute later, having sprinted over and tackled the boy to the ground), but it didn't take a genius to figure out what he had said to Minghao. It was the same word that was whispered among the students every time he walked into a classroom, hissed at him every time he walked past the gossipy girls at their lockers, spat at him every time he was cornered by bullies. _Halfbreed._

"Nothing I haven't heard before," Minghao said, turning away and glossing over the second question. Hansol is half-Korean and half-American, but he doesn't understand. It's different when a human and a faerie have a child, especially when Minghao's dad is nowhere in the picture. Hansol glares at the lemonade like it has personally offended him, frustrated that somehow everyone thinks that just because Minghao is half-faerie they can treat him like he isn't a whole person. "Seriously, Sol, drop it. I'm used to it."

"You shouldn't be," Hansol complains childishly. "Nobody should be a jerk to you. Who is it? Is it someone from your grade? I'll deck them in the face."

" _No._ You can't keep getting in trouble because someone said something dumb to me, you'll get expelled," Minghao protests, but Hansol only bristles at the implication that Minghao gets stupid comments often enough for Hansol to receive an expulsion for giving every single one of the perpetrators a well-deserved punch. Being in different grades is _so_ inconvenient; he can't protect Minghao from the narrow-minded blockheads when they're in different classes. He's lucky they even have the same lunch period.

Hansol switches tactics. "Okay, what if I get Mingyu-hyung to punch them?"

"What the- Absolutely not. No." Minghao looks horrified at the prospect of involving Hansol's pack brother, with whom he has a fragile friendship born of Hansol frequently dragging Minghao to barbecues, insisting that his pack would be fine with it. Hansol chews his lip in thought, then nods resolutely. "You're right, he's no help with those noodle arms. Seungcheol-hyung it is, then."

"I said no, Sol, which means no punching. From anyone." Minghao says firmly, and Hansol sighs, defeated. As much as he's itching for a fight, what Minghao says goes. 

Minghao turns back to the mirror and pats down the hair so it lies over his pointed tips of his ears, hiding his pretty doe eyes under the edge of his fringe. Hansol hates it, so logically, he does what any nine-year-old would do: he marches over and brushes the strands away himself. Minghao looks at him silently, waiting until Hansol is satisfied and retracts his hand. That's one thing Hansol loves about Minghao: he lets Hansol do whatever he wants most of the time, and doesn't question him.

"I like your ears, hyung," Hansol tells him, determined in the defensive set of his shoulders and the fierce look in his eyes, even if his words are soft and coated in honey. He _needs_ his hyung to know this. "You don't have to hide when you're around me."

Minghao just blinks at him, an unreadable look in his eyes before they curve into half-moons and his lips stretch into a smile. "Don't get mushy with me," he replies in mock disgust, but he doesn't raise his hand again. Hansol grins.

"Okay, I'll stop being nice if that's what you want," he agrees, flopping down on his swivel chair and downing half of Minghao's untouched lemonade. Minghao yelps in outrage, reaching for it before changing his mind and grabbing Hansol's glass instead, sulkily sipping at it. They drink in silence, the condensation making their palms slippery, Hansol smugly grinning at Minghao while the latter merely clutches at Hansol's glass and glares at Hansol over the brim. Hansol downs the last of the sour juice, hearing the ice cubes clink as he teasingly raises the glass to salute Minghao, and the older boy sticks his tongue out at him.

Hansol wipes his mouth with the back of his mouth and breaks the silence with, "Didn't you say you found a new article this morning?"

"Yeah, apparently the prince actually came out of hiding-" Minghao cuts his own excited ramble off before he can get too carried away. "Wait, you don't want to hear this, you think it's boring."

Hansol _does_ think it's boring, sometimes — it's not like news articles, no matter the topic, are interesting to most children under the age of twelve. Still, he knows it would take Minghao's mind off things, so he says, "You can talk about it if you want. I don't mind."

Minghao squints at him, placing his glass down and hopping up to sit on the desk. "You said you're gonna stop being mushy. Liar."

"I'm not being _mushy._ I'm a nice person, okay?" Hansol pouts, and Minghao just laughs. "If you fall asleep, I'm gonna pinch you."

Minghao swings his legs back and forth as he starts talking, something about how the prince of the Liaoning Court emerged from his isolated kingdom for negotiations. There's a multitude of political terms he doesn't understand, and he can tell that Minghao doesn't quite get them either, but he lets Minghao's voice wash over him, trying to absorb as much as he can. There's a spark in Minghao's eyes when he pours out his thoughts on the prince and the Liaoning Court in general, and Hansol tries to memorise the animated gestures of his hands and the happy lilt of his voice.

Hansol knows Minghao's mother wouldn't be happy if she knew that her son was keeping tabs on the happenings of the Liaoning Faerie Court, considering that's what they were fleeing from when they moved from China to Korea. Minghao doesn't know anything about the man that gave him half his DNA and then promptly disappeared out of his life, the parts of him that make him smell like pansies instead of milk and pennies, that give him his pointed ears and silver hair, aside from the scraps he's managed to find by scouring books and the Internet, because she won't talk about it. So instead he secretly Googles _"Liaoning faerie"_ every morning and talks Hansol's ear off every time a new search result pops up, which isn't often. Personally, Hansol thinks as he watches Minghao babble on, looking the liveliest he's been since he came over this morning, if Minghao looks like this whenever he finds out more about the mysterious faerie-tinted aspect of his heritage, there's no reason good enough to keep it from him.

(And he does end up falling asleep, the warm summer air and Minghao's pleasantly accented words lulling him to sleep, but Minghao doesn't pinch him. When he awakens, his mother is calling him for lunch. Minghao has already left, taken the five-minute walk down the street and ducked into the trees' shadows to avoid the glaring sunlight, but he's left a quarter of the lemonade in his glass for Hansol to finish and a sweet, lingering scent.)

 

**열둘 | 十三**

Hansol is twelve the first time Minghao sees him during a full moon.

The streetlights cast lengthy shadows over the pavement wherever the pack goes. Hansol sticks close to Sofia as they bound down the road, nudging her every time she begins to fall behind. She's practically a baby in her wolf form, her wolf growing at the same rate as her human self rather than maturing as quickly as regular wolves do, and she could easily get left behind on their monthly pack runs as they make a loop around their neighbourhood and expend their restless energy. The streets are deserted, but that's to be expected. Anyone who lives on wolf territory and has a lick of common sense would stay inside during the full moon.

The pack alpha whines, a low rumble through his teeth, and it carries through the pattering of paws against the ground. _Head to the den,_ it means, and Hansol licks Sofia's side in silent encouragement. They're almost there, and they can fall asleep soon. She's panting hard, but still the muscles under her skin tense and stretch as she works to keep up with the rest of them.

The pack veers into their street, moonlight glimmering off their pelts of black and brown. The smell hits Hansol the same time it hits the rest of the pack, and they skitter to a stop as the alpha barks once, both questioning and hostile. It's overwhelmingly sweet to his heightened wolf senses, practically drowning out all other scents, and it's coming from the house across the street, the one Hansol recognises as _human home_ but not _pack den_.

His hackles rise involuntarily. Nobody trespasses wolf territory on a full moon, and for good reason.

Hansol's dad steps out of the huddle of wolves, his body language reeking of tension. He bows his head to the leaders of the pack, pulling his ears back, and waits. It's the beta who breaks away from her mate, licking his muzzle once and barking before she returns to the alpha's side. Hansol's dad starts running as soon as he gets permission to check it out, crossing the street in urgent strides and disappearing around the side of Hansol's human house. Sofia whimpers quietly, and Hansol's mother turns around to nuzzle her soothingly.

There's something about that scent, something he can't quite figure out, but it's hard to when all his wolf senses are screaming _INTRUDER._ As soon as he had caught wind of the smell, his wolf had registered it as unfamiliar and, therefore, a threat. That is certainly no wolf, and anyone outside his pack walking around on their territory should be raising several alarm bells, but somehow he doesn't feel so sure. He can feel it, deep inside him, that there's something wrong with the whole picture, and the scent of pansies is only making him lightheaded —

 _FRIEND,_ the human inside him screams, finally breaking through the wolf thinking. _PROTECT HIM._

Without thinking clearly, without submitting to the pack leaders, he breaks off and sprints towards his human home. He ignores his mother's growl-bark of shock and warning, his head consumed by one thought: whoever his human wanted to protect, it's entirely possible his father has attacked him by now. He rounds the corner to the backyard to find his father prowling the grass, teeth bared and a snarl caught low in his throat. There, on their back porch, is a boy with silver hair and a backpack clutched to his chest, looking close to tears. Hansol can smell the fear radiating off him, coupled with the dizzying flowery scent, but he shakes it off, stepping in between the boy and his father.

Hansol's dad growls, this time aimed at his own son, a warning to stay out of this. Hansol whimpers, pleading, and approaches the boy cautiously, sniffing him and taking no note of the way the boy stiffens, petrified. He turns back to his dad, still whimpering, and with his eyes blown wide. _See?_ He's saying. _Not dangerous. It's okay._

His dad squints at him, probably mystified at his weird protectiveness over this intruder, but he backs off and trots towards the front of the house with a bark that clearly commands, _follow me._ Hansol turns back to the boy, licking his arm and blinking his yellow eyes at him. The boy peers down at him, his fear dissipating as he takes in the familiar brown fur. "Hansol? Is that- Did you just-"

Hansol huffs; they don't have time for this. He takes the hem of the boy's shirt in between his teeth, careful not to scrape his canines against skin, and tugs once, before turning away and bounding off the back porch. He turns back to check if the boy is following him, and the latter obediently scrambles after him. With the boy tailing him, Hansol makes his way back to the pack. Now that he's got the boy with him and his human is appeased, the implications of his actions are catching up with him, and he makes his body as small as possible as he slinks back towards the pack leaders.

The alpha stands in front of everyone else, his hackles raised and his teeth snapping with a threatening _click._ Hansol can smell the suspicion of all the pack members, thick and suffocating. He sticks close to the ground and stops a good few feet away from his alpha, whining and whimpering in the way that pups do. A grumbling growl escapes through the alpha's teeth as he comes closer, tail held stiffly upright. When he's close enough, Hansol drops the ground, rolling over onto his side in an obvious show of submission. The alpha stands over him, maintaining fierce eye contact for a while, before he licks Hansol's chest and nudges him with his snout. Hansol gets up again, licking his alpha's muzzle in happiness. He's forgiven.

The alpha turns his attention to the boy, immediately reverting back to aggression. Hansol quickly goes back to his side, nuzzling him and gently biting and licking his wrist, before he faces the alpha again, ears flattened and whimpering. The alpha rakes his gaze over the intruder's figure, before his narrowed eyes meet the boy's own terrified ones. Quickly, the boy breaks eye contact, dropping his head and baring the side of his neck. _Good,_ the human inside Hansol thinks. _At least he isn't stupid._

There's a tense moment of silence, before the alpha barks and turns back to the pack, starting to race down the street with the rest of the wolves following. Hansol recognises a dismissal when he sees one, and he understands the message of the bark loud and clear: _he's your responsibility now._ They run at the back of the pack, Hansol butting his head against the boy's legs when he starts to slow down. Luckily, the pack den isn't far away, just at the end of the street. They slow to a gentler trot as they slip into the yard of the biggest property, courtesy of the garage that's twice as large as any other in the neighbourhood. The garage door is left open, and the wolves trickle in, finding their preferred spots to curl up in.

The alpha stands near the entrance, issuing a warning growl as Hansol and the boy pass. Hansol already knows the rules: no strangers in the pack den. With everyone's eyes on them, he nudges the boy towards the door at the back of the garage, knowing that it's unlocked. Silently, the boy stumbles up the short flight of stairs and tries the handle, opening the door to the living room of the house. He glances back once at Hansol to find the wolf already looking, then disappears into the house, door clicking shut behind him.

The alpha howls once, signalling the end of the pack run, then trots over to his beta and children, settling in to sleep. Hansol gets comfortable next to one of his pack brothers, the thin black one with a mean bite, sleeping the closest to the door. He falls asleep to the sound of his pack members snuffling and the night breeze ruffling his fur.

;

Hansol wakes up with the jolt, his dream fading away while he's still disoriented. It's already morning, he can tell without opening his eyes, because his human is back in control, his wolf simply a presence at the back of his mind. He blinks the bleariness out of his eyes, weak sunlight filtering through the open door, indicating that it's shortly after dawn. He licks his fur and yawns, then gets up and picks up the plastic bag in the corner, labelled with his name, with his teeth. Majority of his pack members are still asleep, and he tries to keep his noise to a minimum as he trots up the stairs and nudges the door open with his snout. 

The Choi household is filled with the smell of scrambled eggs and bacon frying, and Hansol yips happily as he passes the kitchen. Mrs Jeon laughs at him, experting flipping the bacon, and over the crackle of oil in the pan, Mingyu yells at him to hurry up and get decent if he wants first pickings for breakfast. 

Hansol slips into the first unoccupied bathroom he finds, which is up on the second floor of the house. He doesn't bother clumsily trying to lock the door with his teeth, dropping the bag on the floor and closing his eyes. His joints crack and ears pop as he Shifts, and he blinks away the vertigo that comes with every Shift. Quickly, he dresses himself with the clothes in the bag, then splashes his face with cold water and gargling with mouthwash. When he leaves the bathroom, the smell of food cooking is weaker to his human senses, but no less tantalising.

He meets Wonwoo when he descends to the first floor, the older boy coming out of another bathroom with his hair wet and a towel slung over his shoulders. He ruffles Hansol's hair as he passes, talking around the toothbrush in his mouth. "Minghao is asleep on the couch, you might want to wake him up."

"Thanks, hyung," Hansol says, and Wonwoo nods as he heads towards the garage, presumably to poke his younger brother until he wakes up. Hansol detours from his original route to the kitchen, turning into the sitting room instead. Minghao is sleeping on the comfy leather couch, his backpack on the floor and his hair fanning out on the cushion pillowing his head. Hansol shakes his shoulder gently, and when Minghao starts to stir, he says, amused, "You know there are beds in this house, right?"

"Didn't want to be rude," Minghao replies, his voice raspy from sleep. He sits up and rubs his eyes, letting Hansol run his hands through his messy hair to untangle the knots. Hansol waits for Minghao to fully wake up before asking, "Why'd you come to my house last night?"

"God, I'm sorry. It just slipped my mind that last night was the full moon," Minghao grimaces. "My mom and I, we kind of... had a fight? I dunno. She found one of my articles in my room while I was at dance class, and as soon as I came home she yelled at me for it. And then I yelled back and things escalated and I went to your house to cool off and... Yeah."

"Oh," Hansol says awkwardly. He's no Seungcheol, he has no idea how to react to something as emotionally-charged as that, but for Minghao he tries. "Well, um, are you feeling okay? After all that."

"Yeah, I guess," Minghao says shortly. He looks away, out of the window, where the sun is steadily climbing up the horizon. "It was stupid. I texted her last night, just to let her know where I was and apologise, but I kind of- don't really want to face her yet."

Hansol hums, still carding his fingers through Minghao's hair. The older boy speaks up again, his voice curious. "Did you know it was me? Last night, when you came to rescue me."

"I didn't," he admits. "At first, you just smelled like an intruder, but then my human broke through and basically screamed at me to protect you. I didn't know who you were, I was too wolf to even remember Wonwoo-hyung's name when I slept next to him last night, but I recognised that you were my friend and I couldn't let you get hurt."

He stops running his fingers through Minghao's hair to flick his forehead, eliciting an indignant _"Yah!"_ from the latter, but no protests otherwise. "There's a reason everyone stays inside during full moons, you know. You were on our territory, my dad or alpha would have attacked you for that alone. Stay inside, hyung, you might not be so lucky next time."

"I know, I'm sorry," Minghao says quietly, reaching out to curl his fingers around Hansol's free hand. "Thanks for protecting me, Sol."

Hansol flushes, but doesn't pull his hand away. "Um. No problem?"

He clears his throat, pulling Minghao on his feet. "Come on, my dad will probably apologise to you over breakfast. And Mingyu-hyung makes really good scrambled eggs, we should get there before everyone wakes up and it's all gone."

He doesn't miss the smile on Minghao's face, and he knows the older has seen through his not-so-subtle offer to keep Minghao out of his house for a little while more. Still, he doesn't say anything about it, just holds Hansol's hand tighter as they walk to the kitchen.

 

**열넷 | 十五**

In Hansol's first year of middle school, Minghao joins a dancing competition.

"My teacher selected a few of us to sign up," Minghao excitedly tells him, one night when he's sleeping over at Minghao's house. "Three of us, actually, and we're all going to compete solo. I'm so nervous, but it sounds like a good opportunity right? Parts of it are going to be broadcasted on TV. Imagine if I get into the finals! Oh my God, what if I get into the finals?"

"I'm happy for you," Hansol tells him sincerely. He's never had much of an affinity for dance, choosing instead to listen to rap music or daydream or sleep or do literally anything other than his homework on the nights that Minghao goes to the studio, but he knows that his best friend loves it and fought hard to keep his studies in check while still going for biweekly dance classes. "Can I go watch you compete?"

"Only the finals are open to the public," Minghao says, and Hansol grins. "So what you're saying is, I'm definitely going to watch you perform?"

"Shut up!" Minghao whacks his shoulder, even as he's struggling to hide a smile. "Don't jinx it, dumbass."

As it turns out, Hansol didn't jinx anything, because a few months later, he's ducking into the concert hall where the finals will be held, Mingyu following behind him while holding a cardboard sign with Minghao's name on it.

"Shit, I feel nervous and I'm not even the one going on stage," Hansol says to his pack brother as they settle into their seats, rather far back in the hall. He knows that his mom and Ms Xu are sitting further in front, but he and Mingyu got here late after cram school and the rows in front are filled up by family and friends coming to support the other participants. _Besides,_ Hansol muses to himself as he adjusts the bouquet of flowers in his lap, _it's not very polite to block everyone's view with Mingu's big ass sign._

"Don't worry about it, he'll do fine," Mingyu reassures, thankfully putting the sign on the floor for now. He and Minghao had become pretty close friends, somewhere between being in the same grade and Minghao constantly popping up everywhere Hansol went, though if Hansol knew that it would come down to making this embarrassing neon sign filled with hearts and messy Mandarin characters, he might have stopped the friendship before it even started.

"Yeah, he's going to do great," Hansol mumbles, more to himself than to Mingyu. He has faith in Minghao's abilities, he really does, but as he looks around at all the professional cameras and filming crew walking around, he can't help but be anxious on his hyung's behalf.

The concert starts in earnest, with the host coming out to introduce the show and drawing a few laughs from the audience. The first few performers are good, they have to be to get this far, and Hansol claps after every performance. Still, he's itching to get to Minghao's turn already. He hasn't seen the older boy dance on stage since they were kids.

Finally, the name of Minghao's studio is announced, and Hansol perks up, but the performer's name that follows is _Kwon Soonyoung_ and not _Xu Minghao_. Vaguely, he remembers Minghao telling him that one of the other two guys from his studio who had entered the competition, a human, had made it into finals as well. The boy walks out onto stage, his expression calm and collected. Hansol recognises him from a few photos Minghao has taken with his dance class. _He's really good,_ Minghao had said with a starstruck look. _He's only a year older than I am, but he's miles ahead of the rest of us._

Kwon Soonyoung dances to a sensual English song, the singer's voice sultry as the boy on stage dances his heart out. Even to Hansol's amateur eyes, he's really good, his movements sharp and smooth, and when the song comes to an end and he strikes a pose, the hall is filled with applause. 

The next two performances pass in a blink of an eye. Hansol's leg is shaking up and down, he's so impatient. When Minghao's studio is, finally, announced again, Hansol is practically vibrating in his seat. Mingyu lets out a loud wolf whistle and raises his sign when Minghao comes out on stage, but Hansol is too distracted by Minghao to even be embarrassed by it. The Chinese boy is dressed in a flowy white shirt, tucked into tight black jeans. He's wearing hooped silver earrings, which he usually doesn't to prevent even more attention being drawn to his ears, and there's some sort of glittery make-up on his cheekbones that shimmers under the stage lights. It's weirdly mesmerising.

Hansol holds his breath as Minghao comes to a stop at the center of the stage and bows his head. When the music starts, he doesn't even have to try; all the air is knocked out of his lungs. Minghao dances to an instrumental song, slow and sad, and he matches it with delicate, butterfly-like movements, fluttering his fingers and covering his face. The music begins to spiral, quickening and becoming more bleak, more desperate, and Minghao keeps up with it perfectly, small moves becoming huge turns and sweeping leaps. He fluctuates between gracefully fluid and sharp, jerky actions. It's a descent into madness that has everyone captivated. It ends with a high-pitched, distraught note that lingers after the music fades, Minghao's hand poised to reach toward the sky. The hall is blanketed with a stunned silence for a few seconds, before loud clapping and cheers spread through the audience like wildfire. Mingyu cups his hands around his mouth to yell _"Xu Minghao you goddamn legend!"_ and even Hansol lets out a few whoops of his own. He can't help it. That was _amazing._

Minghao gets up off the floor and bows to them, his happy expression nothing like the almost deranged performance he just put up. The smile on his face is blinding when coupled with the pretty glitter on his cheeks and the radiant glow that surrounds him, and Hansol wants nothing more than to run backstage and give him a huge hug while yelling praises at him. He holds himself back though, politely sitting through the last performance and the host stalling for time until the judges have decided the winners.

Hansol sits at the edge of his seat, hands clasped in his lap as they announce third and second place. Kwon Soonyoung, receives his second place trophy with a grin and a brief thank-you speech for his friends and family. The host looks down at the name scribbled on his script for first place, and Hansol swears his fingers are dead from how tightly he's crossed his fingers.

"And the winner for this year's pool of extremely talented performers is... Pledis Studio's Xu Minghao!"

The hall erupts into applause and loud screams (Mingyu is the source of the latter), and Hansol hops to his feet, clapping so hard his palms are stinging. His face hurts from his huge grin, but he doesn't notice as Minghao steps forward to receive his trophy, bowing deeply and saying his thanks into the microphone. His hair is almost translucent under the white fluorescent glow and his smile is so bright it's as if he's made of light. The competition ends with a shower of confetti and handshakes exchanged among the participants, everyone filing out of the hall while chattering excitedly. Mingyu hugs Hansol and screams in delight, and Hansol is giddy as his pack brother pulls him along and they spill out into the sidewalk.

Everyone is outside waiting for the participants to come out, and it's uncomfortable being surrounded by so many people. There are yells and hugs as one by one, the competitors trickle out, wearing more comfortable clothes and tired smiles. Hansol sees Kwon Soonyoung hugging his mother, his father holding his trophy and looking at his son with proud eyes. As soon as he sees a flash of silver hair, he takes off, squeezing through the crowd with Mingyu behind him.

Minghao is standing with his mother, changed out of his performance outfit, Mrs Chwe congratulating him with her hand on his shoulder, but he turns as Hansol yells his name, smile widening as he catches sight of his best friend running towards him. Hansol practically crashes into him, but Minghao has the sense to wrap his arms around him, and Hansol gives him the tightest hug he can muster. He has so many things he could say right on the tip of his tongue, but as he pulls back and looks at the half-faerie, he just brings his arms back towards him and presents him the bouquet.

"These, uh, are for you," he says, the tips of his ears turning red. "You totally deserved first place, hyung. You were amazing on stage."

Minghao takes the bouquet with a shy giggle and a thank you, examining it carefully before looking back up at Hansol, his usual fond smile on his face. Hansol's eyes dart to the smudge of glitter still on his cheekbone, then to the flowers, then back up to Minghao's face. They smile at each other, a still moment in the whirlwind of shouting and congratulations around them, and in a second, the peace will be broken by Mingyu making kissy sounds at them and Hansol turning around to lunge at his pack brother, Minghao cackling behind him. But Hansol knows he'll never forget the sight of Minghao like this, glimmering cheekbones highlighted by the shitty glow of the streetlights, sweater paws wrapped around this dumb bouquet of flowers Hansol bought at the supermarket, smiling at him like he just won a prize and it wasn't the trophy in his backpack.

 

**열다섯 | 十六**

The summer of Hansol's fifteenth year is rapidly hurtling towards its end, and Hansol is trying to do everything and nothing at the same time, savouring the last few days of relaxation before he's thrown back into the life of textbooks and cram school. The last Monday before middle school officially re-opens finds him crossing the street to Minghao's house, with a snapback shading his eyes from the sun and plans to kick Minghao's ass at Mario Kart.

He steps up to ring the doorbell, humming to himself, but someone beats him to it. The door opens roughly, and Hansol's nose feels like it's being punched. However strong he thought Minghao's scent was, the smell of pansies, coupled with petrichor, is so thick he almost stumbles backwards. He coughs, not very subtly covering his nose and mouth with a hand, as someone unfamiliar steps through the door, bowing at the occupants of the house as they say with a honeyed voice, "I hope you can reconsider, Ms Xu. Have a pleasant day, and favour of the Court be to you."

Hansol's eyes widen at the phrase, and he does a quick scan of the stranger's appearance as they turn back around. Long silver hair, flowing just beyond their shoulders and tucked behind pointed ears. Angular cheekbones and petite features. Pretty beyond belief. They're dressed in a white button-up and jeans, presumably to blend in, but they can't hide their overwhelming flowery scent, or the after-rain smell of glamour. Hansol has heard the last seven words dozens of times in the articles Minghao digs up, knows exactly what this stranger is. What he doesn't know, is why a faerie, a fullblood faerie, was in Minghao's house.

The stranger flicks their gaze over Hansol, unreadable and intimidating, before they flash him a cat-like smile and their eyes flare a brilliant green, just for a second. Hansol shivers, ducking his head, and the stranger glides past him, leaving only the traces of rain-drenched pansies in their wake. Hansol's thoughts are running wild as he robotically steps over the threshold of the house, opening his mouth to let loose a stream of questions. "Who-"

Before he can even finish, Minghao appears and grabs his wrist, pulling him back outside without looking back. Hansol stumbles after him, nearly tripping on the pavement, but he plows through, not saying anything. Until they're halfway across the street and he utters a rather useless, "We're going to your house, okay?"

"It's not like you gave me a choice," Hansol mutters, but he allows himself to be dragged back to whence he came. Minghao goes around the house rather than into it, and Hansol flops onto his back in the shade of the back porch.

It's quiet except for the buzzing of cicadas and distant rumbling of a car. Hansol waits for Minghao to speak, pillowing his head on his hands and watching his best friend sit on the edge of the porch, feet touching the ground, through half-lidded eyes.

"That was Jeonghan," Minghao says, and Hansol quickly opens his eyes. "That's what he told us, though he could totally be lying, I don't know. He's, uh, he's from Busan. The Busan Faerie Court."

A this, Hansol sits up, brow furrowed. "What does the Busan Court want with you?"

Minghao voice is soft and faraway, as if he's only just processing this bit of information as he says it. "They want me to go live with them. To experience a faerie court. For eight months."

Hansol's heart stops. "Eight months? What- What about school? What about your mom, doesn't she hate faeries?" _What about me?_

"She doesn't want me to go," Minghao turns his face towards the sun, closing his eyes. "She doesn't trust faeries, Chinese or Korean or otherwise. I mean, I guess I wouldn't either, if I fell in love with one of them and they just left me with a child and no form of contact. But she doesn't realise that not all faeries are like my father. Not all of them are cowards."

Hansol bites on his bottom lip. "And what about you? Do you want to go?"

Minghao is silent for a moment, still soaking up the sun. When he speaks, there's none of the previous resentment toward his absent parent. "After my father left Anshan for the Liaoning Court, my mom practically blocked out everything that was faerie-related, good or bad. I know a lot more about them than she does, more about how they've changed over the years, more about how the Korean courts are a lot more open compared to Chinese courts' preference for isolation." He opens his eyes and looks at Hansol, something fierce and passionate burning in his eyes. "But I don't know enough. There's so much about faerie courts that I have yet to read about, let alone experience, and this- this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you get me? I won't be the weird freak with the ears and shitty family history. I'll finally _know._ "

Hansol swallows around his heart pounding in his throat. _I'll finally know where I belong._ He changes the subject, trying to steer his mind away from the thought of eight months without his best friend, the one he's never gone two weeks without seeing. "How did they even find you?"

"Ha, that's kind of funny. Remember the dance competition I joined last year? Yeah, one of the higher-ups somehow saw the footage that was broadcasted and immediately knew I was of faerie blood, and they're, like, fascinated with me. There hasn't been a half-faerie in ages, obviously, because nobody wants to compromise their position in their courts like that. It took them a while to contact me, right? But they're still pretty cut off from the outside world, so I'm not surprised," Minghao cracks a smile, then gets that look on his face that Hansol recognises from every time he finds a new article. "You know what Jeonghan-hyung told me? Since the Internet and mobile signals don't work inside faerie courts, they communicate with the other courts by writing letters. Sounds ancient and slow, I know, but their birds are charmed or whatever, so they can usually get a reply back within a day. He told me that the Seoul and Busan courts once had a disagreement but they could just fought it out with increasingly passive aggressive letters until they got sick of waiting hours for the replies and just sent a negotiator over to the Seoul Court. Faerie pettiness is so dumb. Dumb, but hilarious."

Hansol watches the way Minghao narrates the story, the way his eyes light up and crinkle with amusement. His heart aches, but what is eight months without his friend by his side when compared to the years of wishing and yearning that Minghao has gone through? He's the only one besides the person himself that knows about the stack of articles under the half-faerie's bed, the scarce pickings of library books about faeries that Minghao has read again and again over the years, the silent hunger he holds to know more about this part of himself. How could he try to convince him not to go?

"I'm gonna miss you," Hansol mumbles, lying back down and fixing his gaze on the dusty ceiling. He hears Minghao's giggle, and it soothes the sting a little.

"You're talking like my mom has already agreed," Minghao says jokingly, but Hansol knows that his heart is already set on it, and nothing can stop a Minghao with his heart already decided. He doesn't say anything back, feeling the summer heat pressing all around him, breathing in the smell of dry dirt and sunshine. He feels rather than sees Minghao get up from his perch at the edge of the porch, the floorboards creaking, and come to lie down next to him, the scent of pansies drifting closer.

"I'll miss you too," Minghao says. When Hansol chances a quick glance at him, he's not looking in Hansol's direction, face turned towards one of the cobwebs above them, but his hand wriggles into Hansol's and squeezes. "Don't worry, I'll sneak away and text you. Maybe they'll let me use one of their magical messenger birds."

Hansol hums and closes his eyes, memorising the feeling of Minghao's fingers wrapped around his and tucking it away for the next eight months.

;

Minghao leaves one week into the school term. One day he's sitting with Hansol and Mingyu at lunch, throwing fries at the older werewolf and mocking Hansol's terrible taste in fashion, and the next he's boarding a train with a one-way ticket to Busan in his hand. Hansol hugs him goodbye and watches the train disappear into the distance until it's nothing but a pinprick on the horizon. Then he lets Ms Xu drive him home and invites her in so she feels a little more at ease after tea with Hansol's mother.

It's weird. Hansol catches himself thinking about going over to Minghao's house or dragging the older boy out for ice cream before he remembers that Minghao isn't just a walk down the street away anymore. There are funny incidents and ridiculous rumours that run amok in their school and Hansol wants to text Minghao about them but he doesn't. Their little traditions, like sleepovers and Mario Kart and drinking lemonade as they study together, just halt abruptly. In the first few weeks, Hansol keeps turning to his side and trying to catch a trace of pansies in the air, too used to having Minghao close by. It's weird. Nine years spent fitted together like two puzzle pieces will do that to you.

Minghao texts him, once a week if he's lucky, going two weeks without contact if he isn't. Pretty early on into his absence, Minghao told him that one of the faeries in his host family, Jisoo, had secretly slipped him instructions on where faerie glamour was the weakest, and he could get a couple weak bars of mobile signal. He could only go there once in a while, in between all the new experiences and learning he has to catch up on, but he tells him that he's thinking about Hansol and his mom and home all the time. Hansol replies to his texts as soon as he sees them, then reads the sparse messages over and over, until he feels like he knows the Jeonghan and Jisoo and Jihoon from Minghao's stories even though he's never met them in his life. He does get one of the magical bird letters once, a huge raven flying onto the windowsill of his room and scaring the shit out of him. The letter clasped in its beak is addressed to _Hansol Vernon Chwe_ in Minghao's looping handwriting, and he keeps it in the drawer next to his bed.

Months pass. Hansol gets taller, outgrows both his favourite pair of sneakers and his obsession with obnoxious snapbacks. He makes friends with his lab partner in chemistry, a round-faced, hilariously dramatic human kid named Boo Seungkwan, and they play basketball together and pass notes to each other in the boring classes. Seungkwan introduces him to his friend in the grade below, Chan, and Hansol has a slight crush on him for his cute smile and his passion for dance and moonwalking at the most inappropriate times. The red cheeks and butterflies in his stomach fade away after a short two weeks, but he and Seungkwan stick close to the younger one, sitting with him in the cafeteria and pinching his cheeks as he glares. Christmas comes and goes, and he gives Seungkwan a plushie and Chan a Michael Jackson CD. His mother sends him to gift Ms Xu with a plate of cookies and a box of teabags, and Minghao passes her a badly-wrapped Mandarin book that he knows Minghao will like when he comes back. Missing Minghao doesn't stop, but it gets easier.

The texts come in late January, when Hansol's in the library studying with Seungkwan after school. His phone screen flickers to life as he receives two texts in rapid succession, and he lets his gaze stray towards it briefly before he steers it back towards his textbook. Then the contact name registers in his mind, and he snatches up his phone to see what Minghao has to say. He reads the two messages quickly, then reads them again to make sure, trailing his eyes over the characters like he could have somehow missed their meaning. Suddenly, he feels a little giddy, like the air in his lungs has been replaced by champagne bubbles.

"Dude, are you okay?" Hansol hears Seungkwan say, and he drags his eyes away from his screen to see a half-concerned, half-offended look on his friend's face (to be fair, this is Seungkwan's usual expression when faced with any minor inconvenience). "You just froze up and then started grinning like a madman."

"It's nothing," Hansol says, typing away on his phone. "I've never been better."

 _Get ready to drive to the train station in the snow,_ says the texts. _I'm coming home in two weeks._

;

Hansol bounces on the balls of his feet, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket to keep them from tapping impatiently against his thigh. Next to him, Ms Xu is the picture of calm, standing straight with a cup of black coffee in her hands, but Hansol can see the way her eyes keep flicking between the platform and the time stated on the huge digital clock-face above them. It's 11.13am on a Saturday, and Minghao's train is scheduled to arrive one minute later.

Right on cue, the train from Busan pulls into the station. Its doors slide open and a wave of people spill out onto the platform, the train station instantly becoming crowded and noisy. Hansol scours the faces of the people walking through the ticket barriers, looking for a familiar head of silver hair. His brows furrow, confused, before he hears a loud _"Mama!"_ and he turns to the left and sees —

It's Minghao, running towards them with his luggage dragging behind him and a huge smile on his face, but it's not Minghao at the same time. This Minghao has shorter hair, nothing like the long bangs that used to fall over his eyes and cover his ears, but cut so that the pointed tips of his ears can be seen, and slighted parted in the middle in gentle waves. His jawline is more defined, his cheeks pink and lips shiny with some kind of lip gloss. He's wearing a camouflage jacket over black skinny jeans, and it makes Hansol realise how long his legs are. As he gets closer, Hansol can see the metal in his ears glinting under the artificial lighting.

It's startling. Hansol always thought that Minghao was pretty, but this. This is new, and gorgeous, and it's making Hansol's chest seize painfully.

Minghao lets go of his luggage and runs to his mom, enveloping her in a tight hug. Ms Xu strokes the back of his neck, speaking to him in rapid-fire Mandarin. Minghao moves back to reply just as excitedly, eyes shining with happiness. Ms Xu pats his arm fondly, then says something that makes him look over at Hansol, a smile automatically spreading over his face. For a second, Hansol can do nothing but stare.

"Hey," Minghao says, pulling away and walking closer to him. Hansol feels his heart jump, then start beating at double speed. It's infuriating. It feels like when Chan looked up at him with a smile and said, _"Hello, Seungkwan-hyung's friend. My name is Lee Chan, can I call you hyung too?"_ Except worse. Way, way worse. Because this is Minghao, not some pretty boy he just met, but Minghao. His Minghao.

"Hansol?" Minghao says, stepping closer, and Hansol violently fights the urge to back away, get a bit of breathing space. _It's Minghao,_ he sternly reminds himself. _Just reply, don't make it weird. You can freak out about this later._

"Your ears," he blurts, stupidly, instead of any other sweet thing he can say to his best friend who he hasn't seen in almost a year and somehow went and got hot while frolicking with faeries. Minghao touches the outer lobe of his left ear, like he forgot that those piercings existed. "What- When-"

"Jisoo-hyung did them for me," Minghao says, laughing nervously and swiping a finger over the helix piercing self-consciously. Hansol follows the movement with his eyes. "For a guy who looks so innocent, he has way too many piercings and some are in... strange places. Do- Do you like them?"

"Yeah, I love them," Hansol says in a breath, maybe a little too honestly, but Minghao smiles at him like nothing's changed. He feels a surge of self-assurance, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Minghao in a hug. The older boy instantly brings his arms around Hansol's waist too. "You look great, hyung. I missed you."

"I missed you too," Minghao says into Hansol's hair, and the werewolf relaxes as he breathes in Minghao's familiar scent. He can almost forget about his stupid heart and his stupid brain, until he steps back and Minghao smiles at him while running his fingers through his fringe. His traitor of a mind turns to putty. 

"Come on, I'm kinda hungry. Ma, what are you cooking for lunch?" Minghao turns away to retrieve his luggage, and Hansol takes the time to compose himself, breathing in deeply. He looks at Minghao's back, at the cropped silver hair and the hoops and diamonds decorating his ears, and for a tiny moment, lets himself sink into the dizzying free-fall feeling of attraction. _God,_ he thinks as Minghao twists back and beckons him with a tiny wave. _God, I'm so fucked._

 

**열일곱 | 十八**

High school is both better and worse than middle school.

Better, because everyone is nicer. Which is an odd thing to say, considering how judgmental teenagers can be, but Hansol finds it to be true. He goes to a big high school closer to the middle of the city, unlike his previous schools, which were small and contained the same kids he's gone to school with since kindergarten. Hansol didn't have a lot of friends in middle school, and he was okay with that, but high school greets him with both new friends and old. He and Seungkwan are in the same form room, by some stroke of luck, and Seungkwan manages to wrangle them a couple of new friends by the end of the first week, and then some more as the semester goes by. He exchanges notes with the girl who sits next to him in Korean history, and talks a student councillor out of giving this one dude demerits, and he makes friends with them too. People are nicer in high school, and that's how he finds his introverted, perpetually daydreaming ass some new friends. It's also partly (mostly) Seungkwan, whose loud mouth and tendency for theatrics attracts lots of attention.

People are nicer to Minghao too, he's realised. They were stuck with the same kids with the same childish distaste for Minghao and his heritage for so long, all the new faces smiling at Minghao in the hallway feel like a breath of fresh air. They know him more as the kid who went on TV and won that dance competition, than as the weird half-faerie freak. The strange looks and double-takes don't completely cease, but it's a lot better.

Maybe it's because Minghao's changed too. He holds himself with a quiet confidence now. He doesn't try to hide his ears; he goes for a haircut when his bangs start annoying him and he amounts a substantial collection of earrings that he shows off in public. He's got a group of friends in his own grade, too, a bunch of rowdy, attractive boys who stir up trouble everywhere they go and half the female student populace (and a good portion of the male student body too) are in love with. (Mingyu is, unsurprisingly, the loudest one of the gang. Though that Thai kid could give him a run for his money.) He's changed, gotten more comfortable in his own skin, but some things haven't. When he sees Hansol in the hallways he always smiles and high-fives him, and they still play Mario Kart and drink all of Mrs Chwe's lemonade and are best friends.

And there lies the problem, the reason why high school is worse. Sometime after he'd had the startling realisation that his best friend is hot, like proper Cute Boy Hot, the attraction had developed into a crush. It was the little things, like the way his piercings shone in the sunlight, or the way his hair fell over his forehead. The tiny giggles he let out every time Hansol said something dumb, the fond smile he had when he was looking at his pictures of his friends in the Busan Court, the witty remarks he muttered under his breath about his idiot friends. His infuriating new habit of applying lip gloss, which he said he picked up from when his lips became chapped from the salty Busan air, and hadn't broken because he just liked how it looked. All of it drove Hansol insane. He couldn't be in the same room with Minghao without thinking about what it would be like to kiss him. A lot of the time not spent with Minghao was also wasted on him thinking about kissing Minghao.

Middle school was better because at least in that last year, he wasn't in the same school as Minghao. He could spend at least half a day without breathing in Minghao's flowery scent and feeling light-headed. It was a brief reprieve from the hyper-aware, overwhelmed sensation he got when he was around the half-faerie, even if he was a very weak man who couldn't reject Minghao's offers to hang out after school. At some point, Seungkwan had managed to drag the name of his crush out of him, and he spent too much time not paying attention in class and venting about Minghao to Seungkwan instead.

But then high school came, and of course he went to the same one as Minghao. He thought he would have gotten over it before middle school ended, but more than a year into this stupid crush situation and it doesn't seem like it'll be going away any time soon. He's dealing with it. He's gotten better at hiding it, at acting natural around Minghao when his stomach does gymnastics every time he looks at Hansol's general direction. 

And then his Presentation comes, and it all goes to shit.

"Sol? Dude, your character just died," Minghao asks, snapping Hansol out of his inner turmoil. He looks away from where he's staring blankly at the end screen of their video game, to Minghao's concerned face, eyes worried and mouth drawn in a slight pout. Despite himself, his dumb brain has the audacity to think, _woah, he's really cute._ Then his internal wolf unleashes another headache-inducing howl, making him clutch his head in pain and all thoughts, Minghao-related or not, fly out of his mind.

"Shit, Sol, are you okay?" Minghao drops his controller and grabs Hansol's shoulder. The younger boy blinks the stars out of his eyes and shakes off the pain, ignoring the wolf thrashing around on the inside. He smiles weakly at Minghao, who lets go but doesn't let the worry fade from his face. "What's going on? You've been out of it the whole day."

"It's nothing," Hansol waves him off, but Minghao doesn't relent. "Are you sick? You have a test in a few days, if you're getting sick you should rest and take some pills before it gets worse-"

"I'm not sick," Hansol interrupts. He's avoided talking about this because of how mind-numbingly uncomfortable it is, but he supposes Minghao is going to find out anyway. "My Presentation. Um. It's tonight. Probably."

Minghao's mouth curves in a silent _o._ Hansol looks away, skin prickling in the awkward silence. Minghao clears his throat and says, eloquently as possible, "Ah. My bad."

It's silent again, until Minghao hesitantly offers, "Well, do you wanna, like, talk about it or something-"

"Oh my God, no. Fuck no. I would really rather die," Hansol says, wincing around another wave of pain, and then smiles at the obviously relieved _"Thank God,"_ that Minghao mutters. He looks out the window, then back again. "Honestly, maybe you should go. It's almost sunset, and you wouldn't want to be around for... That. I'm going to be out of my mind, I won't be protecting you this time."

"Seriously?" Minghao says, as he stands up and grabs his his backpack, tossing his controller onto the couch. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

Hansol grins. "Never. You're indebted to me for life, hyung."

Minghao mumbles something that sounds like an insult in Mandarin, but before he leaves, he turns back and says, "I hope it all goes well. Like. I dunno, it's supposed to be painful and shit I guess, but it'll be fine? I don't- What am I even saying."

"Hyung, just leave before we both shrivel up and die of embarrassment," Hansol says, throwing a pillow at the older boy, even though his heart warms at the clumsily-worded sentiment. Minghao laughs and catches the pillow, tossing it back to hit Hansol in the face before he leaves. Hansol lets himself lie there for a few seconds, listening to his heart beating in his ears and internally groaning at how pathetically gone he is, then groaning out loud when his wolf sends a flare of pain through his temples. Fuck. He can't wait until this night is over.

;

Hansol remembers his pack brothers' Presentations, clear as day. They all went through it around the age of fifteen, and Mingyu's was just two years ago. Hansol, Sofia and Mingyu's little sister were the only ones in the pack who hadn't had their Presentation yet, and his parents were starting to get worried about him. Then two weeks ago his skin had started feeling like it was stretched too tight and his usually peaceful wolf began to rebel against him, snarling and snapping to be let out. Hansol's dad had smelled the air when he had walked through the kitchen, the morning of the full moon, and immediately known. Every wolf within a fifty-meter vicinity could smell it off him: his Presentation was near.

Hansol remembers that his pack brothers had pretty much gone mad during their Presentations. During regular full moons, werewolves are dominated by their wolf side, and it's the same during Presentations, except they go into a blinding wolf-controlled haze that no wolf or human can break through. And they didn't recognise the pack hierarchy either. Hansol had seen Seungcheol snap at his own dad's jugular, still growling even as the alpha had pinned him down with his teeth on his son's neck. It was a terrifying thought.

In contrast, Hansol doesn't remember much about his own Presentation. What he remembers the clearest is the guttural scream that ripped out of his throat when he began Shifting, because Shifting had always been uncomfortable but never _painful,_ never like icy fire tearing away at his bones and needles through his skin. After that, it was just flashes: howling and clawing at his fur, growling at any wolf who approached him, launching himself at the Mr Choi to challenge him for the position as pack alpha. It was some biological thing that every wolf went through, Hansol had learnt, nature's way of keeping the fittest at the top of the pack, but at that point in time all Hansol was thinking about was drawing blood. Luckily, Mr Choi had gone through this with six other Presentation-crazy teenage wolves, and even with Hansol's newfound strength and defined muscles, he was easily overpowered by the alpha. The rest of the night was spent wrestling with his pack brothers, trying to establish dominance and climb up the pack ranks. He lost to everyone except Wonwoo's younger brother, and he and Bohyuk tied as the two youngest males.

Hansol had woken up this morning with a splitting headache and four whole centimeters added to his height. It was weird, looking into the mirror to see how his face had matured and his frame had filled out, literally overnight. He's taller, broader, and he has _biceps_. He could get used to this. 

Hansol sees Wonwoo almost as soon as he steps into his high school, and the older wolf ruffles his hair, smiling proudly. He's shit at masking his fondness for his pack brothers, and apparently also shit at applying concealer. Hansol winces when he sees the faded teeth marks on the side of his neck, definitely his own work. Wonwoo tells him not to worry about it, and that Seungcheol's coming home from university over the weekend so he can coo over his newly-minted adult pack brother. Hansol sighs. He's Presented already, and still everyone treats him like a baby.

Hansol knows Mingyu and Minghao's gang are approaching even though they're at the end of the hallway and Hansol's face in buried in his locker. They're hard to miss, with Seokmin arguing with Yugyeom over pineapples on pizza and Jeongguk and Jaehyun's basketball bro-talk and Mingyu's naturally high volume blasting over all of them. He can smell pansies as they get closer, and weirdly enough, for the first time in ten years, his wolf perks up at it. 

"Hey, Sol," Hansol hears as soon as he finds the worksheet he was looking for. The sound of Minghao's voice sends tingles up his spine, but he doesn't stop to think about it, closing his locker and turning to face his best friend. "What's up-"

And then it hits him. 

As soon as his eyes fall on Minghao's face, Hansol's wolf goes nuts. It claws at the confines of his brain, desperate to get closer, desperate to surround itself in Minghao's scent, desperate to taste his lips and saliva and skin —

 _MATE,_ his wolf howls, and if Hansol weren't preoccupied with not Shifting in the middle of the hallway, he might have run to the nearest window and jumped out of sheer mortification at the situation. 

This is the uncomfortable part of Presentations that everyone tiptoes around and hates bringing up. This is the part that Hansol had pushed to the back of his mind and pretty much forgotten about. The newly-acquired strength, the height, the urge to climb up pack ranks, all of it is the wolf equivalent of a male peacock's showy display of brilliant green feathers. Presentations make you an adult wolf in every sense, and that includes being hormonal as fuck. 

Evolution got them so far, and yet years of biological advancements did not deter Hansol's wolf from being a shithead and identifying Minghao as a potential mate. 

"Hansol?" Minghao asks, stepping closer. Hansol, blindly, scrambles backwards against his locker, even though his wolf growls at him for it. Minghao frowns but doesn't point it out. "Are you okay? You don't look so good."

"I-I'm fine," Hansol stammers, taking shallow breaths so Minghao's sweet smell doesn't go straight to his wolf's head and drive it up the wall. Minghao raises an eyebrow, clearly not convinced. So Hansol lies a little bit. "Just- Presentation stuff. It was rough last night."

"Ah," Minghao says, thankfully backing off at that. "Did it go okay? You weren't too beat up, were you? I saw some scratches on Mingyu's cheek, but he just shrugged me off when I asked."

Distantly, in the back of Hansol's mind, he thinks, _For fuck's sake, why do none of my pack brothers know how to use concealer?_ He smiles nervously at Minghao, gripping the hem of his uniform so tightly he's sure his fingers have lost blood circulation. "It went. Normally. Uhm. Nothing wrong happening here. I should probably- go."

"Uh, okay-" Minghao starts, but Hansol doesn't let him finish, stumbling past him and practically sprinting to his classroom. 

After that, Hansol avoids Minghao like he has the plague. Sure, he says hello in the halls and replies to Minghao's texts, just so he isn't too blatant, but being in the same room as the half-faerie for more than five minutes makes his heart race and his wolf whine, so he steers clear of that at all costs. He denies Minghao's requests to hang out after school. He stops going over to Minghao's house unannounced, and he stays out of his own home by tagging along with Seungkwan or Chan or literally anyone who's free that afternoon, just so Minghao can't surprise him by coming over. He walks in the opposite every time he hears Minghao and his group of friends coming. He even bribed Mingyu to keep quiet about the whole thing and dodge any questions from Minghao.

He knows that Minghao is likely a little concerned over his disappearing act, but he convinces himself that it isn't a big deal and Minghao is probably preoccupied with other things.

As it turns out, it _is_ a big deal, and Minghao is not.

They're at a party hosted by one of the basketball players in Wonwoo's grade, because even though Seungkwan doesn't know the cause of Hansol's sulking over the past two weeks, he's determined to snap him out of it. Hansol lets him pick out his outfit and drag him out the door while chatting his ear off, partly because he knows his friend's aggressive badgering and fussing is out of genuine concern, and partly because he needs an excuse to get out of the house and get a break from the incessant loop of Minghao his mind seems to be stuck in.

Now Hansol's standing by the wall, a plastic cup in his hand and no one to talk to. The party is pretty big, with what looks like half of their high school's entire student body packed into one house. He's pretty sure someone spiked the punch with vodka, but werewolves are impulsive enough without the influence of alcohol, so he poured himself a cup of Sprite and headed out of the kitchen, just to linger near the wall and people-watch. Seungkwan has somehow slipped away from him, although Hansol can hear some loud screeching from the patio that could be him playing ping pong. Hansol decides not to join him, instead leaning against the wall and scanning the room, taking everything in. There's electronic music blasting from somewhere, the bass thumping heavily throughout the room. Some people are gathered in the centre, dancing and laughing and whispering into each other's ears. Others have clustered along the walls, just talking and grinning at each other in the dim lighting. Hansol sees Jaehyun and Jeongguk enter the room, and instantly the noise level increases, the two getting high-fives and fist-bumps and greetings from crowd.

Then Minghao walks in behind them, and Hansol instinctively ducks behind the two giggly girls next to him before his brain finishes processing everything. 

Shit. He had been banking on the high probability that Minghao wouldn't show up. Neither of them are particularly involved in the partying scene, though Minghao has probably been to a few more than Hansol. They aren't the most sociable people, but Hansol realises he forgot to take Minghao's popular, life-of-the-party friends into account. 

Minghao doesn't seem to notice him, which sends Hansol reeling with both relief and an uncomfortable, deflated feeling. He takes the lack of attention as a chance to properly look over the half-faerie. He's wearing combat boots and a loose flannel jacket, the sleeves slipping down to expose his arms. With an electrifying tingle, Hansol realises the shirt Minghao has worn underneath, a black muscle tee with the name of some obscure underground rapper group printed on it, used to be Hansol's until it got lost among the dozens of shirts he and Minghao have swapped over the years. Minghao accepts a drink from Jeongguk, running his hand through his bangs as he takes it, and Hansol tears his eyes away and downs the rest of his Sprite in one swallow. 

His wolf's insistence on finding a mate in Minghao has toned down several dials since that day after his Presentation. The first day is always the most overwhelming, he's learned, but that doesn't make the rest of it any easier or less confusing. Presentations are supposed to make you horny, lust over anyone who has even a sliver of compatability with you, not fixated on one person. Hansol, in a fit of panic, had taken to Google. It isn't unheard of, but it's far more common in werewolves who were already in relationships before their Presentation. _Feelings of intense attachment and attraction can divert your wolf's attention to just one person rather than other legible mates,_ said one website, and Hansol had slammed his laptop shut, face burning. 

Inevitably, his gaze drifts back to Minghao, a bad habit he hasn't been able to coach himself out of. He's making conversation with one of the guys standing next to him, smiling prettily and giggling at something the latter said. Hansol's wolf rears its head, growling lowly. He watches as the two boys laugh and clink their cups together before drinking, an ugly sensation unfurling in his gut. 

Minghao isn't his. This is something he understands, somewhere in the back of his mind. Unfortunately, his wolf and his protectiveness don't seem to agree. 

He sees the stranger move to brush a strand of hair away from Minghao's face, moving closer to the half-faerie, and something in Hansol snaps. Before he knows what he's doing, he's crushed his plastic cup in his hand and is moving across the room, his wolf howling at him to _do something._ Minghao squeaks in confusion when Hansol roughly pushes through the crowd to stand slightly in front of him, but he doesn't turn, instead looking stonily at the way surprise flits across the unknown boy's face before he schools it back into a neutral smile. 

"Is there a problem here?" He asks, and his tone is polite but Hansol's wolf can't help but snarl at him, at his charming smile and perfect proportions. 

"Yes," Hansol says shortly, his mind clouded by his wolfish fog. "It's you."

"Hansol, what the _fuck_ -" Minghao hisses into his ear. He pays it no attention, staring down the boy standing opposite him. "Junhui didn't do anything-"

"He's done enough," Hansol says, not taking his eyes off Junhui. For the first time since he learned to control it at the age of six, he lets a bit of his wolf's growl creep into his voice.

To his credit, Junhui doesn't even flinch at that, instead raising his cup and backing away. "Whatever you say, man. I'm staying out of this."

He inclines his head towards Minghao. "Maybe we can talk after you get your little boyfriend on a leash."

Hansol nearly launches himself at Junhui for that, if not for Minghao's hand on his shoulder. He turns around, still grappling against his wolf for control, but Minghao punching his shoulder, _hard,_ shocks him back into reality. 

"Ow, what the-" Hansol yelps, rubbing his shoulder, but the rest of it fades away when he sees the barely-masked anger on Minghao's face. 

"What the fuck was that, Hansol?" Minghao says accusingly. "Junhui and I were just _talking_."

Hansol's wolf doesn't even need to react to that, because Hansol is the one who scoffs and says, without thinking, "Yeah, sure. He couldn't keep his hands off you."

Something flares in Minghao's eyes, cold and sharp, and he jabs his finger into Hansol's chest. Distantly, Hansol realises that his Presentation-induced growth spurt puts him pretty much ay eye level with the previously-taller half-faerie. "You have no right," he hisses. "To avoid me for two weeks and then rescue me from something I don't need saving from."

"I-" Hansol starts, not really sure what he can say in his defense, but Minghao cuts him off before he can continue. 

"I'm not some little kid who needs your protection anymore, okay? If you don't want anything to do with me, then stay out of my life," Minghao says, chin raised defiantly, but Hansol can detect the undercurrent of hurt in his voice. Talons of pain dig into Hansol's chest. "You don't get to decide anything for me."

With that, he turns around and squeezes through the people pressing around them, away from Hansol. Out of the corner of Hansol's eye, he sees Jeongguk cast a glance at where his friend had disappeared out the door, share a worried look with Jaehyun, then go after him. 

Hansol just stands there, his crushed cup still clutched in his fist. For a moment, he wishes he didn't know Minghao so well, because then at least he would chase after him and appease some of the guilt pooling in his stomach. But he does, and he knows that Minghao won't listen to him when the anger's still fresh on his mind. 

So instead he goes to the kitchen, gets a new cup and pours himself some of that spiked punch, chugging it all in one shot. 

He fucked up. 

;

The week passes with zero contact from Minghao. No texts, no invitations to hang out, nothing. If Hansol thought he had been doing a good job at avoiding the older boy, Minghao does it ten times better. Hansol would have thought he had disappeared off the face of the Earth if Mingyu hadn't told him, with his disappointed hyung face, that Minghao was still alive and very much in a bad mood. 

Hansol isn't faring much better himself. Seungkwan dragged him to that party to make him feel better, but all he did was make himself more miserable. He's no stranger to the feeling of missing Minghao, but it's different, less like a constant ache and more like prickles of guilt gnawing at him. It's worse, because this time he has no one to blame but himself. 

He hates it when Minghao is mad at him. It only happened a handful of times when they were younger, and only for an afternoon. Then Hansol would show up at his house with video games and an apology and they'd be okay again. 

So Hansol asks a favour from Wonwoo, who looks at him weird but complies anyway, and asks his mom to make a pitcher of lemonade.

"What do you want," Minghao says flatly when he opens the door, standing so that he blocks the entrance. He's just in sweatpants and a ratty T-shirt, looking like he just got out of bed, but still Hansol's wolf whines at his familiar flowery scent and the way his hair falls messily across his forehead. He tells it to shut up. 

Hansol holds up the Mario Party Xbox game in his hand unoccupied by a pitcher of lemonade. "Can I come in?" He asks weakly. Minghao huffs, but he moves to let Hansol in. 

"If you're here to lecture me about my life choices again, I don't want to hear it," Minghao tells him bluntly. Hansol shakes his head frantically, setting the pitcher down and turning to face Minghao. 

"I want to apologise," Hansol says. Minghao raises an eyebrow, but doesn't interrupt. Hansol sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "It was really shitty of me to just barge in when nothing was happening. I don't know what came over me. I was acting like, I dunno, like I owned you or something. You're right, you can make your own decisions. We're not kids anymore."

Hansol reaches into his pocket and produces a slip of paper, handing it to Minghao. The half-faerie frowns at the string of numbers written messily on it. "What's this?"

"It's Wen Junhui's number," Hansol mutters. "I asked Wonwoo-hyung for it. They were partners for a project once and. Yeah. I'm not forcing you to text him or whatever, you can decide that for yourself. But I interrupted your conversation, so I just thought maybe you'd like a way to talk to him again."

Minghao looks at the piece of paper for a long moment, silent, until he looks up and at Hansol with a blank face. "Hansol," he says slowly. "You do know that all Chinese students are in the Foreign Student Association and we all have each other's numbers, right?"

"Oh." _Oh._ Hansol is an idiot. 

Then a small smile appears on Minghao's face, and he carefully folds the paper slip and tucks it into his pocket. "There you go again, not using your brain," he says, fondly. "But thank you. For understanding. And giving me that choice."

Hansol just mumbles something unintelligible under his breath, still caught up in the fond look in Minghao's eyes. Then the fondness turns into worry, etching the smile into a frown. Hansol mourns the loss. 

"Sol, why have you been so weird the past few weeks?" Minghao asks, moving to stand near Hansol and touching his hand lightly. Hansol tries not to react to Minghao using his nickname and getting comfortable again, but he can't help but feel a little giddy. "You know that whatever it is, you can tell me, right?"

"I know," Hansol replies instantly. They haven't kept secrets from each other since Hansol was eight and found the broken pieces of his favourite plastic toy soldier under Minghao's bed. Then of course Hansol went and got a crush on his best friend, and things got complicated. "It's just- My Presentation."

"Right, you started acting strange after that," Minghao creases his brow. Hansol wishes he didn't find it cute. "What about it?"

"It, uh, it makes me really protective. Like, crazy, full moon-level protective," he stammers. _Of you, and just you,_ he doesn't add. Omission of truths isn't lying, he tells himself.

"Okay," Minghao readily accepts. Hansol feels ready to collapse from relief at the lack of questioning. "And the avoiding thing?"

Hansol winces. How is he gonna explain his way out of this one? "Uh, yeah, about that. My wolf actually-"

"Is it about Mingyu?"

Hansol blinks. Where did that come from? "Mingyu-hyung?"

"Yeah, I mean, you ran away from me after I mentioned his scratches. And he kept deflecting my questions about you," Minghao clarifies. In his mind, the memory of Hansol bribing Mingyu to shut up about him surfaces. "Did you guys get into a fight or something? Is that why you were avoiding me and all our friends?"

"Um. Yes." Hansol thanks the powers above that Minghao is simultaneously really observant and worryingly dense. "It's a wolf thing. Pack hierachy shit. I just- didn't want you and your friends to get caught up in it."

Minghao chews his bottom lip. "Do you want me to talk to Mingyu about it?"

"No!" Hansol yelps. It's one thing to bribe Mingyu into not talking, it's another for him to make up a whole pretend-fight. Hansol would have to explain the mate situation, and he would really rather get mauled by bears. He softens his voice at Minghao's confused look. "No, it's fine. It was my fault anyway, I should be the one apologising to him."

"If you say so." Minghao doesn't look convinced, but he lets it go. "I don't like the fact that the two of my friends aren't on speaking terms, okay? Especially since you're pack brothers. Whatever it is, it's not worth it."

"Yeah," Hansol agrees, thinking about the closed-off look on Minghao's face that night of the party. "Yeah, my actions weren't worth the consequences."

"Good that you acknowledge that," Minghao grins, finally relaxed. For the first time in three weeks, Hansol lets himself smile back. Minghao reaches out to grab the Xbox game from Hansol's hand. "Come on, I'm gonna kick your ass at Mario Party. First one there gets to play Princess Peach!"

He turns and runs off towards the sitting room. Hansol allows himself to grin stupidly at his retreating back, not even bothering to compete. He knows he'll let Minghao play Princess Peach anyway. He's just happy he has his best friend back. 

 

**열여덟 | 十九**

Hansol's year as a second-year high school student is passing without any major hitches. His grades remain as they always have been, maintaining his B+ average in every subject except English. He attends Chan's middle school graduation and treats the younger to a celebratory all-you-can-eat buffet dinner. He invites Seungkwan over for one of his pack get-together barbecues, since Mingyu invited Seokmin and Wonwoo is bringing his girlfriend and at this point Minghao just shows up uninvited (but not unwelcomed), and snickers when a smiling Seungcheol offers his friend a drink and Seungkwan turns tomato-red. He goes to a basketball game with Minghao, taking turns to offer his sunbae some support (Hansol) and yell obscenely creative insults (Minghao) at Jeongguk, who discreetly gives him the finger before shooting a three-pointer. Spring fades into summer fades into autumn, and suddenly it's Minghao's birthday. 

"Oh my God, this is one of the most popular _huǒguō_ places in town," Minghao says, gaping up at the storefront. Hansol had refused to tell him where they were headed on the bus ride here, so he's pleased to see the surprise had worked. "You have to book a table at least two weeks in advance."

"I know, I have a reservation," Hansol tells him, only to see Minghao's jaw drop further. He rolls his eyes. "Are we gonna go in and eat, or do you want to stand outside here and stare the whole night?"

"Can't a guy be surprised that his best friend is using his common sense for the first time in eighteen years," Minghao mutters, but he follows Hansol as he walks in, goes up to the counter and asks for the reservation under Chwe. A waitress leads them to their table, right in the middle of the busy restaurant. Hansol tells Minghao that he can order anything he wants, letting him pick the menu. He watches as Minghao converses with the waitress in Mandarin, listens to how his voice curls over the elegent syllables. 

His wolf hasn't completely given up on making Minghao Hansol's mate, but over the course of the year, it's become a soft whine in the back of Hansol's mind. Hansol and his wolf have to come to a compromise most of the time, since human and wolf interests tend to conflict, and his wolf seems to have backed off since it knows that Hansol isn't ready. His wolf would have probably found someone else to whimper about, honestly, if it weren't for the fact that Hansol's human brain can't quite give Minghao up either. 

Hansol reaches into his pocket under the table, feeling the velvety material of the box within. Seungkwan had teased him for days when he asked his friend to help him pick out something from the jeweller's for Minghao's birthday, but ultimately he had actually been a big help. The witch behind the counter had definitely liked him more than she liked Hansol, so at least he could be sure the necklace he bought wasn't cursed. 

Their food arrives quickly, and Minghao takes charge of cooking the ingredients in the soup before distributing it between him and Hansol. It tastes delicious, the expectations set by the long waitlist more than met, and they talk in between bites. Minghao tells him that Jisoo had managed to convince the faerie parliament in Busan to get a couple laptops in their library and now they've been emailing each other back and forth, and that Jihoon is thinking about moving to the Seoul Court. Hansol talks about how Wonwoo had come home from college for the weekend, doing nothing much except slaving through his coursework and whining at Mingyu to cook for him. He also updates Minghao on how Chan is doing at his performing arts-specialised high school, scoring well and being the top student in his class.

"Sounds like he's doing way better than I was in my first year of high school," Minghao says, setting down his chopsticks after popping the last piece of tofu in his mouth. "Speaking about that, remember that university of the arts that I went to check out a few weeks ago? They're opening up portfolio submissions next week. I've been talking to my dance teacher about it, but it's still nerve-wracking to choose what I should showcase."

Ah, yes. The one topic that Hansol had wanted to avoid tonight, coming to bite him in the ass. It's a violent reminder that in a few months, Minghao's going to graduate and enter university, leaving him in the dust. Hansol knows that if a year spent with Minghao in an isolated faerie court and Hansol still in Seoul wasn't enough to separate them, then a half-hour bus ride to Minghao's university won't either, but he's still irrationally afraid. University sounds so grown up, a world away from high school. University sounds like a chapter of Minghao's life he won't get to be a part of. 

"I'm sure you'll get in, hyung," Hansol reassures, squashing down his own fears. He's not going to be a downer on Minghao's birthday. "They'd be stupid not to accept you."

"We'll see," Minghao hums, taking a sip of his Chinese tea. He puts it down, a devilish smirk suddenly on his face. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about something. Seokmin told me that he saw you and Seungkwan at the mall the other day, buying jewelry. You getting engagement rings without telling me or something?"

Oh, for the love of God. Hansol hopes Lee Seokmin chokes on the saliva in that big mouth of his. 

"No, we weren't doing anything of the sort," Hansol denies, hoping Minghao doesn't notice his red ears. But of course he does, if his widening grin is anything to go by. "Then what? Was it a date?"

"No! Seungkwan and I aren't like that," Hansol splutters. His crush assuming he's dating the only person who knows about him liking Minghao? The irony isn't lost on him. 

"Why not? You and Seungkwan have been friends for a while now. He's a nice kid, and he's funny. Good at basketball, too, you have no idea how much Jaehyun complains about the fact that he won't join the team-"

"Because I already like someone else," Hansol blurts, just to shut him up, then flushes at an alarming speed when he realises what he's done. Minghao's eyes widen comically. "You _like_ someone? And you didn't tell me? I thought we didn't keep secrets from each other anymore! Asshole. Who is it?"

Hansol could lie. He could say it's one of Minghao's friends, he could grasp at the name of one of his classmates. He could say it's Chan; that wouldn't be something he just pulled from thin air. But it's been three years. Three years, and still this crush doesn't look like this is going to go away any time soon. He doesn't like lying to Minghao, and whoever he says, Minghao is just going to pester him to confess anyway. If he tells the truth, well. At least he'll be sure Minghao won't forget him when he goes to university. 

So he takes the box out from his pocket, holding it out for Minghao to take. His voice shakes slightly when he says, "It's you, hyung."

Minghao just stares at him for a moment, stunned. He looks from the anticipatory look on Hansol's face, to the rectangular velvet box, and back at Hansol again. With a trembling hand, he takes the box, choking out a weak laugh. "This better not be a fucking wedding ring."

"It's not," Hansol says softly, but he isn't sure Minghao hears him, because right then he opens the box and his eyes go wide with wonder. He touches the pendant like it's made of the world's most precious diamonds. Hansol's heart throbs painfully. 

"What kind of flower is this?" Minghao asks, still looking at the little metal charm attached to the chain. Hansol laughs nervously. "It's a pansy. You know, the flower I told you that you smell like. It's kinda weird, but I associate pansies with home now."

Minghao doesn't reply, moving his attention to the flat metal plate behind the flower charm. He giggles, getting the joke immediately. "Is this a dog tag?"

"Read the words on it," Hansol says, and Minghao lifts it up to read the characters engraved into the metal: 在你心里. _In your heart._ It coaxes a smile onto his face, so Hansol guesses his minimal Mandarin skills hadn't failed him. "The necklace is charmed. Every time you look at it, you'll only think of good memories."

Minghao stays silent, eyes still fixed on the pendant, but Hansol knows his mind is miles away. He waits, his heart beating in his throat. Why do people ever confess? This is _torture._

"I- I need a moment. To process this, all of this. I'm going outside," Minghao finally says, not meeting Hansol's eyes, and he's getting up and making a harrowed exit before the last word is out of his mouth. Hansol watches him go, dejection trickling down his spine like cold water. It isn't outright rejection, but it doesn't look like a good sign either. 

With a sigh, he gets up too and heads to the counter to pay. There's a line, and the short wait helps him clear his mind a little, get out of his own head. It sucks that Minghao hadn't said anything like, _actually, I've liked you for years too, wanna be boyfriends?_ But underneath that twinge of hurt, he, surprisingly, feels lighter. He hadn't realised how much his crush on Minghao has been weighing down on him until he got it off his chest. 

When he steps outside, the sky is dark and the streetlights cast a sketchy glow over the busy roads. Minghao is standing to one side, fiddling with the hem of his jacket. Hansol doesn't know what to say as he approaches, so he doesn't say anything. 

Minghao looks at him when he stops, an obvious gap between them. He takes a deep breath, like he's gathering courage from somewhere deep inside him, and asks, "You like me? Really?"

"So much," Hansol answers immediately, if quietly. Minghao searches his face for something, something Hansol is unaware of, and he seems to find it, because he's stepping closer, closer, closer. 

And then they're kissing. 

Hansol shuts his eyes instinctively, hands coming up to rest on Minghao's thin waist. Minghao tastes like spicy soup and a hint of his peach-flavoured lip gloss. The air is cold around them, wind whipping their hair around, but Minghao is so, so warm, and Hansol could hardly care less about anything other than their lips on each other. 

Minghao pulls away after a moment that feels like eternity. Hansol's eyes flutter open slowly, and his hand automatically touches his lips, like he's checking if that actually happened. _What the fuck,_ he thinks, then says out loud, "You like me, too?"

Minghao laughs, shortly and sweetly, and Hansol thinks he could get drunk off it. "Here's where wolves and faeries differ. You're always so impulsive, so ready to dive head-first into every emotion. We're careful, Sol, we're tread lightly over everything. Whatever I feel for you, it's probably nothing compared to what you think you feel for me. I don't even have a name for it. 

"I know that you make me feel comfortable, that you make me feel at home. I know I would spend the rest of my life by your side, I just didn't know in what way. But I think I know now. I think I've been on the edge of falling in love with you for forever," Minghao says, his warm breath ghosting over Hansol's lips. His voice is a whisper. "I think I'm ready to fall now."

Hansol is the one who kisses him, this time.

 

**영원히 | 在一起**

Minghao gets into the university he sent in his portfolio for, and a year later, Hansol starts attending a university fifteen minutes away by bus. He majors in linguistics, which Seungkwan says is boring, and Hansol acknowledges that it probably does seem so when compared to Seungkwan's crazy choice to study acting. He spends too many nights in Minghao's dorm, some of it spent reviewing his course material and most of it spent making out and feeling thankful that his boyfriend doesn't have a roommate.

Minghao goes back to the Busan Court in his second year of university, for a two-day visit, but this time Hansol comes with and has dinner with Minghao's faerie friends. They pretend not to notice Hansol's hand on Minghao's thigh under the table, or the two of them disappearing for five minutes before they have to separate, Minghao going back to the court to visit his host family and Hansol back to their hotel room, and come back with swollen lips and messy hair. 

In the summer of Minghao's third year and Hansol's second, the half-faerie takes Hansol to Anshan, his hometown. They eat the cuisine of Minghao's early childhood and Minghao laughs at Hansol's clumsy pronunciation before gently correcting him. They don't hear from the Liaoning Faerie Court, even though the Busan Court sent a bird-delivered letter to them just to inform them of the presence of a half-faerie in their midst. Minghao doesn't think about it even once. He knows where he belongs.

**Author's Note:**

> welp i hope you enjoyed that! just a brief explanation before i finally leave: most of the bolded words are hansol and minghao's age, e.g. **hansol's age in korean | minghao's age in mandarin**. except the very last one, which translates into **forever | together**. i'm cheesy and unoriginal ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> again, merry christmas and happy new year's!


End file.
